Reflections:
Week 1:
The universe makes me feel insignificant, but also like I’m part of something bigger than myself. I cannot possibly know the entire scope of the cosmos, or their inner workings, even though it is compelling to try.
I think Alison did a really good job curating the Space Sirens playlist. She captured, in my mind, the way I feel when I stargaze and my eyes travel along the milky way. The way my head spins reading about different galaxies light years away. The way my chest gets a little tighter while I try to comprehend the space I occupy among all these celestial bodies.
In my painting, I tried to design a landscape that could be on Earth or part of a yet undiscovered planet. You can see the galaxy edge spanning across the sky, inspired from when I was in Brazil drifting through a midnight black river. All of the stars fill the sky, pinpricks of light that represent the millions of miles surrounding this planet. On top of the left mountainscape, a lone person stands in the dark. It’s a planet of their own, but looking at the night sky they can see themselves connected through the depths of space to other people, other planets, hoping, possibly even knowing, that they aren’t alone.
Week 2:
This week’s theme was definitely more difficult as I am not inclined to precision and realism in my art. I lean more towards mediums and subjects I can be less precise with. Watercolors and paints are good for this as well as sketching pencils. Subject wise, I really like drawing plants, landscapes, and other natural things. I also enjoy just working with different color schemes and making abstract pieces with different designs and patterns.
However, for perspective, I decided to do the classic two point building sketch as my main piece. I also did some really quick sketches of different things I could see from my spot on the hill this last nice day we had. It’s interesting to see the difference between a perspective drawing using the two-point, ruled-line techniques versus just free handing what I saw around me. Getting down onto paper what I actually see is difficult for me and I should practice a lot more if I ever want to be decent at it.
The building in my two-point perspective sketch is the Columbus Tower in San Francisco, California. It was one of my favorite individual buildings I saw while exploring the city over spring break. The whole city was beautiful in so many different ways. I fell in love with a lot of the architecture in the different neighborhoods. All of the colored houses, each with their own character, ran up and down the hilly, tree-lined streets. I could see myself living in one of the neighborhoods there, but the city as a whole was kind of stressful. But back to perspective, I think I could use a lot of the photos I took in SF to practice this skill and reminisce.
Week 3:
We were supposed to pick three symbols to represent three things that make us who we are. Maybe I went a little overboard with my symbolism, but I wanted to try to make something that represents who I am in the present moment, but also the person I’m growing into. To do this, I reflected on my past, present, and future selves.
There are a lot of different symbols in this piece, but I tried to choose ones that have personal significance. The different crystals are ones that I own and that have meanings I find important. I am also a big fan of plants and have both succulents and a golden pothos, like the ones shown.
Symbolism Breakdown:
Sodalite (blue crystal): stand up for beliefs; drive for truth
Peridot (green crystal): birthstone; sun stone; good luck; helping others go through what you’ve been through
Goldstone (orange crystal): self-confidence; happy thoughts; creativity; physical energy and mental clarity to achieve goals
Azalea (pink flowers): femininity; strength; beauty
Succulents (around base of crystals): loyalty; endurance
Air plants (around base of crystals): creativity; freedom
Philodendron (leafy plant above crystals): love of nature; growth
Aloe vera (spiky plant above crystals): healing; protection
Golden pothos (plant below crystals): perseverance
If we want to go the astrological route, I am a Leo. I’m a sun sign and my birthstone is peridot. Leos tend to be extremely loyal, loving, confident, attention-seeking, and high energy. I don’t always think I fit this description, but I’ve definitely always aimed to be a loyal friend. The relationships in my life are extremely important to me. As I’ve gotten older, I have started to learn how to love the people in my life without having all of my energy drained. I’ve also learned to step back from one sided friendships and relationships that are more give than take.
I love helping others whenever I can, especially my friends and family. I think the healing and protection of the aloe plant can be attributed to both my desire to protect others and ease their pain, but also my need to protect and care for myself and heal my own wounds. I’m still searching to find the balance between these two that I know is extremely important.
I’ve always had a love for nature and creativity. I seek it out in my life whether it’s through my latest project, travel plans, or taking a deep breath while I stand under rays of sun. I hope to intertwine these two things into my future career. Creative problem solving and design, environmental sustainability, conservation, and traveling are all things that interest me greatly. To find a career that emphasizes some of these things would be amazing.
I’ve always been a pretty positive person, striving to radiate light when I can. However, self-confidence is something that I have to work on everyday. I think almost everyone can relate to that. I also think that coming to college has been essential for my personal growth and development. My relative freedom from old expectations is refreshing. I feel like I am finally starting to come into my own through all of the ups and downs of new experiences. I think I can attribute this to both my own perseverance and the friends I met last fall. I am incredibly blessed to have these people in my life. They’ve encouraged me to pursue my passions, remember my own strength, and believe that my convictions are important. They are wonderful humans whom I love wholeheartedly.
I hope that as I continue on my path of growth I find the energy I need to fight against the injustices I see around me while also embracing all of the beautiful things in this world, including myself. I hope to find the mental clarity to see where I should channel my efforts and where I should look for fulfillment. I hope to continue to learn about all the important and interesting people and places. I hope to find what sets my soul on fire and the strength to chase it. I hope to continue to push the limits of who I am and who I can be. Long story short, I hope to live a life full of meaning.
Final Thoughts:
The final project is done! It went through a lot of iterations and got really stressful, but overall I’m pretty happy with the result. I’m glad everyone at The 86 likes it - I was really worried they wouldn’t since it’s an amateur art piece done by Biology, Psych, PoliSci, and Mechanical Engineering majors. I think that kind of adds to the meaning behind it though. You have the same everyday students that frequent the coffeeshop collaborating to incorporate elements that resonate with them as well as important aspects of The 86 itself. It was really interesting to see how all of our ideas came together with Monica and Chris’s in a way that reflected all of us. It was a challenge at times to try to incorporate the things they wanted in an artistic way that matched the overall feel of what we were attempting to create.
I think this whole experience has been really rewarding. I enjoyed exploring different mediums and methods of expression. My favorite individual art piece was the starry sky (does anything ever really beat the feeling of taking in hundreds of thousands of tiny specks of light?) , but in terms of what made me think more deeply I appreciated the self-symbolism piece. I did a lot of self-reflection with that piece and contemplated the ways in which I desire to grow. I hope to continue this reflection of my personal journey through art, journaling, and discussions with others. I think that the first step towards personal growth is being open to change and criticism, something that I’ve been better at since entering college. I’m genuinely excited to see where I’m at a few years from now.
I’ve also learned that being judged for the things I create is extremely stressful and I have an even greater respect than I did before for people who create works of art that they put their heart and soul into. It’s rather terrifying to publicly display something you’ve worked on because it can invite a lot of criticism. Our project was a donated piece, but it was still scary. I keep saying I want to do creative things in my career, but I think I would need to get way better about not taking criticism too harshly and being more confident and resilient. I have some friends in DAAP and I honestly don’t know how they handle all of the critiques they have, especially the ones in front of the whole class where a professor dissects every aspect of their work. I guess these kinds of things are what will be experienced in the workplace, but it is still really nerve-wracking.
During this experience, I’ve enjoyed putting together this website to display our work as well as developing some of my leadership skills. Group projects are stressful, even with friends, and I tried to work on my ability to incorporate others ideas into a cohesive product. I also tried to work on group management skills. I wasn’t necessarily in charge of the project, but I did my best to help keep everything on track so that we could meet expectations and deadlines. In the future, I would love to take on a leadership position in an extracurricular, volunteer group, or job. I enjoy helping people work together and making sure everyone’s great ideas come to fruition. Going back to the website, it’s not the best, but I think it helps display our work this semester in an interactive and visual way. It also should help our honors advisors find all of our reflections and evidence of our learning. I enjoyed working on it for the most part and coming up with ways to organize everyone’s art and information in a way that was still aesthetically pleasing. I still have a lot of work to do if I want to be good at web design, but it’s definitely something I’ve been interested in for the sake of personal projects since middle school. In sixth grade, I designed a website for my independent art project that included pages about art tips, mediums to work with, and famous artists. I was pretty proud of it at the time, but it’s funny comparing it to stuff I’ve made recently.
Overall I am really grateful to have completed this experience with my friends, my art, and our community partner The 86. I look forward to pursuing similar projects either personally or in the community. I think it is extremely beneficial to have had the experience of collaborating with community partners at this point in my life. I worked on this project throughout the semester and also took the Innovation Inquiry class that partnered with the Cincinnati Zoo to design enrichment opportunities for some of the animals. Both of these experiences were amazing opportunities to work in a semi-professional setting, managing teams and developing communication and interdisciplinary skills. These things are not only fun for me, but will also help build the skills necessary to excel in my future career, whatever that may be.
